


you do it to yourself, you do

by niccals



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, basically alex does the annual twitter live rant n is like damn why so james is like idiot it’s ok, im very tired and leg itchy, sort of breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 01:11:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18728656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niccals/pseuds/niccals
Summary: based on alex’s twitter fiasco with jaackmate ft. james being there for comfort.





	you do it to yourself, you do

**Author's Note:**

> i don’t feel like proofreading tonight so it’ll wait until tomorrow or whenever i connect back to reality enough to be like hey pally buddy there friend please fix this

Sometimes he overreacts but sometimes it’s justified. Sometimes he doesn’t know when to stop but sometimes he thinks he doesn’t need to stop. Sometimes things like that happen because a guy shittalked him in a youtube video.

Alex was initially confused when he saw that his mate, Jaackmate, had uploaded a video on the interview Alex and Fraser had done with Alfie Deyes. It wasn’t the topic of the video, but that Jack didn’t invite him for an interview to justify what he said, like he said he would, while also talking down on him.

To say Alex was upset was an understatement. Upset and pissed off. Jack had specifically told him he was going to have Alex on for a bit to defend himself, but instead went ahead and recorded and edited the whole video without him. To top it all off, Jack had made points that didn’t register as reasonable in Alex’s brain.

To be fair, Alex would admit he was shit at handling stressful situations. That left him at doing an impulsive twitter live to prove that he’d done nothing wrong, that he and Jack weren’t friends, just to defend himself since he couldn’t do that in Jack’s video.

The opinions were mixed. On one hand, yeah Jack did a rubbish thing, excluding Alex from the video and such, but on the other hand people agreed that Jack made actual points that made sense. Alex was ranting, though, and didn’t have time to switch opinions. He wasn’t an idiot, and he wouldn’t let anyone think that, even if at some point he realised he wasn’t completely correct.

Only seconds after Alex had finished the live stream he received a call from James. Alex sighed, just hoping for the day to be over instead and for no one else to bother him.

“Jesus christ, man.” James chuckled through the phone. Alex already knew he’d seen the stream. He really regretted saying certain things when he was upset, as the consequences just involved either people getting irritated with him or people being concerned for him. He didn’t want either.

“I hate drama.” Alex mumbled.

“You seem to get caught up in it quite a bit, though.”

“I know.”

There was silence for a moment, then loud shuffling noises that made Alex flinch away from the phone.

“Are you okay?” James asked. Alex frowned.

“No, I’m feeling quite stressed, mate, if you couldn’t clock that.” Alex sighed.

“Do you want to come round mine?” James offered. Alex paused to consider it.

“Why?”

“Why not? Come on, stress isn’t good for you.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Alex paused again. “Sure.”

“Okay, yeah, cool. I’ll see you when you get here?” Alex could hear James’ relief through the phone.

“Yep.” Alex said and hung up without another word. He completely shut off his phone, locked his door and flopped onto his bed with a sigh.

Alex hauled himself out of bed eventually and pulled on some worn socks and the nearest pair of trainers, stuffing his phone in his hoodie pocket. He left the flat without saying a word to George.

.

James had give Alex a quick hug before letting him inside. Alex was quieter than usual, but James knew that was the norm for when Alex got like this. They had a chat over some tea, and James made Alex promise to stop overreacting so much.

“I don’t overreact!” Alex had protested when James first mentioned it.

“Jack recapped the Alfie interview with some negative things to say and you told everyone you weren’t friends, at all, and painted him as being this canevin being.” James explained. That shut Alex up for just a moment.

“Okay,” Alex slouched his shoulders. “Sorry; I promise.”

The conversation was left at that. James invited Alex to come play FIFA with him to take their minds off things.

At some point James had received a call from George, asking him if Alex was with him. James nodded and responded in with short answers to Georges questions. Alex just stared at him and waited for him to finish.

“Was that George?” Alex asked when James set his phone back down.

“Yeah, wanted to know where abouts you were.” James nodded.

“Why didn’t he just call m-” Alex asked, stopping once he realised he had his phone off. He slipped it out of his pocket and pressed the on button once, seeing that his phone was still off. “Never mind.”

They played for a bit longer after that. Alex wasn’t too sure what prompted it, but right after James had scored, Alex randomly felt the urge to hug James. So, without a word or an explanation, Alex lifted his legs to rest on the either side of James’ lap so that he was facing him, and wrapped his arms around James’ shoulders, burying his head into his neck. James dropped his controller and slowly wrapped his hands around Alex, rubbing shaped onto his back in silence.

They separated after no more than five minutes, Alex being the first to pull away and sit back down beside James on the sofa. Alex glanced back over at the TV screen where the game was left abandoned.

“What was that for?” James asked. Alex turned his head to face him.

“I don’t know.” Alex shrugged. James silently nodded, looking over at the TV.

“That’s fine.”

“James?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think of Jack like that. I-I don’t mean half the things I said.” Alex looked sad. This is where the regret kicks in, James guessed.

“Okay, yeah, it’s good to admit that.” James nodded with his lips pursed.

“We’re mates. I still want to be. You think he hates me, James?” Alex’s voice wobbled.

“Of course not. Hopefully he’s mature enough, hm?” James consoled. Alex was silent for a moment but nodded anyways.

“You reckon everyone else hates me? A lot of people didn’t seem very happy with me.” Alex frowned.

“They don’t hate you, Al, they just don’t agree with you. I mean, I watched it, and you made fair points but then in other areas you really did twist things and probably said more than you should’ve.” James rested a comforting hand in Alex’s shoulder.

“I- uh- I don’t really remember a lot of it. I just remember being angry and upset and decided the only rational way to settle it would be a twitter live rant.” Alex chuckled in a way that was more just a sad huff of breath. “I’m a fucking idiot aren’t I?”

“Of course you are, mate, but maybe just lay off on the rant live streams, yeah? Don't seem to be doing much good so far.” James smiled. Alex softly giggled, pressing his lips together and nodding.

“Can we watch a film?” Alex asked.

“Uh- yeah, sure. Which one?” James stumbled over his words a bit at the sharp topic change.

“Doesn’t matter.” Alex replied. He turned off the light and grabbed a stray throw blanket while James opened up Netflix.

James had settled on an odd sci-fi movie, Okja, which had them completely engrossed. Well, it had James completely engrossed but Alex seemed to have grown tired at some point. James didn’t even notice when Alex fell asleep on his shoulder. It was only at the very end of the movie that he noticed. He smiled down at Alex as the next movie began playing in the background, leaning down and placing a gentle kiss atop Alex’s head.

**Author's Note:**

> title: just - radiohead


End file.
